And finally got it...

After interviewing for the US visa, the wait for passport delivery begins. Now, the embassy gives us 2 options to collect the passport. One is to collect from VFS office (the agency handling the operations for them in the city) near Park Street or get it couriered to one's place by Blue Dart. Since, IIM C campus does not fall into the delivery zone of Blue Dart, the second option was ruled out and instead I could collect it from Blue Dart office at the Airport!

Moreover, collection is possible from VFS only the next day of the interview and that too from 1400 hrs to 1600 hrs; else they will send it to Blue Dart office. I called up VFS office in the morning and inquired about my passport. They checked their records, had no information about my passport and advised to call at 2 pm. I was scheduled to meet a company official for a project near the airport and so I left for the same.

Once my interview was over, which went quite fine, it was 3 pm and it suddenly struck me to call VFS office. I tried their number multiple times but the sad Airtel connection did not allow me to connect. And even if it did connect, the call dropped multiple times. I decided to use the SMS service, but as the luck had it, the message was not getting delivered! After more trials, I finally got to speak to VFS operator and indeed my passport was lying in their office and I had just about 50 minutes to reach their office from the Airport.

I hired a cab and he very confidently told me that even with traffic, we can make it in max 40 minutes to the destination. Little did I know that Calcutta Metro would have been a convenient, cheaper and faster option. Trusting him, I jumped into the cab and thus began the journey. Luckily, he took me through the by-pass route which promised no traffic which was indeed true. But, nothing comes for free and I could see the taxi meter moving like Akhtar's deliveries!

While in the cab, I received an SMS that my message for passport enquiry has been delivered and Airtel 'thanked' me for using this tracking service. I was amazed to read this but when I read the next line, I was shell shocked! I was charged Rs. 10 for this service !!! The point is that it was never mentioned that I will be charged that amount for the service. I thought it will be a normal Rs.3 SMS charge for a service when a message is sent to a 5 digit number. Moreover, somehow any visa activity seem to give license to everyone in the world to charge any amount of insane money. I experienced this when went to my photo clicked for the visa form. The US visa have strict photo specifications and everyone has to get them clicked, come what may! When I went to the photographer and asked rate for photos, he told me its 50 odd for normal passport pics. I asked photos for visa and rates skyrocketed to Rs. 300 for 4 pics. I was dumbfounded. That's daylight robbing going on! I negogiated and finally managed to bring it down to 275, but still it was too much to pay.

Nevertheless, no point in thinking about this now. The taxi had beaten a majority part of the traffic but finally I could not escape the traffic moving at snail's place. It was 1540 and cabbie assured me of me making it there in max 10 more minutes. But the traffic refused to move and if it did, it was not more than 50 meters in one shot. I still kept my cool as I had a buffer of 10 minutes. The traffic moved, albeit slowly and steadily but in some time I realised that I am going to be late for sure. The cabbie was also helpless as there was just no space to move. I decided to call the helpline and inform them that I will be late by 5-10 minutes and if possible, please consider my case. But as the Murphy's Law exists, it was bound to happen. I just could get through the helpline at all :(

Amongst this crazy setting, we moved out of the traffic area and then the cabbie rammed the accelerator and we were moving at a frenetic pace. But alas, I was late and reached the building at 1607. I was late but I still wanted to take a shot. I paid the cabbie and ran into the building. I asked the guard the floor of the office and it was on the 14th floor of this 14 floor building. Why the top floor only?! Well, I went inside and saw that first lift was meant for first 7 floors, moved on to the next one to discover that it was for 7th to 14th floor but was out of order. Grrrr!!! Saw the third lift, it was for all 14 floors and was working too. 2 more people were waiting with me for this lift. The lift arrived and all 3 announced "14" as the destination floor to the lift-man. He closed the door but another guy stepped in by putting his foot between the closing doors, which reminded me of Amitabh Bachchan doing it in Deewar :D He had to go to the 12th floor, which meant some extra seconds for me!

Thankfully, lift was a high speed lift and I reached the VFS office at 1610. Now the guard did not allow me inside as officially the time was over. He was doing his duty and he was right in doing so. I pleaded him saying that I am a student of IIM Calcutta, and will need to go to airport to collect it from Blue Dart as Joka is not in the delivery zone. He was not budging at all and I told him to allow me to speak to someone, to which also he did not agree. I gave him my IIM Caclutta I-card and requested him to speak on my behalf to the officer. He agreed to this proposal and went inside. He came out after 2 minutes and allowed me in. I showed the required identification and collected the passport. I must have thanked that officer some 100 times for considering my case.

I opened to check my passport and was delighted to see a 10 year, multiple entry visa stamped! I came out and thanked the guard again and again :) :)

As it is said - All's well that ends well!